Two playing days, same leader: Young Chull Kim

SUWON – Korean Young Chull Kim was the brightest star in the first two days of play in the qualifications of the Suwon World Cup. On day 1 he lead the charts with 4 points and an average of 1.666. Today, on day 2, he was once again the best in a field of 36 qualifiers.

Young Chull closed off day 2 with two victories in his flight, and a 1.714 average. He is again first of the 12 players that go through to the next round.

Six Koreans head the table: after Young Chiull Kim we find Sang Pil Um, Tae Soo Lim, Hyun-Suk Kim, Seop Jin Yi and Kyung-Nam Ko on the list.

Dong-Ryung Kim, like yesterday, was best out of the blocks, but he did lose one flight match against Young Turkish talent Omer Karakurt and only made it to the next round as eleventh qualifier.

Most notable on day 2 was the battle in flight D, where Vietnamese Quiet Chien Tran and Korean Dong Hoon Kim fought for top billing.

Kim won the first set 15-13 in six innings, Tran ran away in the second set with an 11, to lead 13 – 2, a set he eventually won 15 – 7 in 6 innings. The decider also went to the Vietnamese, who was leading 7 – 0, but needed quite a few innings for the last two points: 15 – 6 in 11, the Vietnamese scoring at a 1.869 pace.

The second day of play saw 4 runs of 10 or more: Hyun-Suk Kim, Quiet Chien Tran and Hyung Kon Kim with 11, Nam Ho Sin with 10.

The highest general average was for Quyet Chien Tran:1.738.
Dong Hoon Kim (1.526), Dinh Tien Dang (1.422), Jong Wan Kim (1.440) and Ho Suk Jung (1.347) were eliminated with averages that in other World Cups would pave the way to the main tournament.

Nine of the twelve players to qualify were Koreans, two were Vietnamese, one was from Japan.

The best twelve from day 2 (with their averages):
1 Young Chull Kim, 1.714
2 Sang Pil Um, 1.666
3 Tae Soo Lim, 1.578
4 Hyun-Suk Kim, 1.428
5 Seop Jin Yi, 1.000
6 Kyung-Nam Ko, 0.810
7 Quyet Chien Tran, 1.738
8 Hyung Kon Kim, 1.395
9 Hideaki Kobayashi, 1.060
10 Dinh Nai Ngo, 0.847
11 Dong-Ryong Kim, 1.404
12 Nam Ho Sin, 1.164.